System-on-a-chip (SoC) device with integrated support for ethernet, TCP, iSCSI, RDMA, and network application acceleration

ABSTRACT

Certain aspects of a method and system for a system-on-a-chip (SoC) device with integrated support for Ethernet, TCP, iSCSI, RDMA, and network application acceleration are provided. Aspects of the method may include storing on a multifunction host bus adapter (MHBA) chip that handles a plurality of protocols, at least a portion of received data for at least one of a plurality of network connections. The MHBA chip may be configured for handling the received data based on one of the plurality of protocols that is associated with the received data. The received data for the at least one of the plurality of network connections may be processed within the MHBA chip. The one of the plurality of protocols may include an Ethernet protocol, a transmission control protocol (TCP), an Internet protocol (IP), an Internet small computer system interface (iSCSI) protocol, and/or a remote direct memory access (RDMA) protocol.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS/INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

This application makes reference to, claims priority to, and claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/688,265 filed Jun. 7, 2005.

This application also makes reference to:

-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,863 filed Sep. 16, 2005; -   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,060 filed Sep. 16, 2005; -   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,398 filed Sep. 16, 2005; -   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,163 filed Sep. 16, 2005; -   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11,228,059 filed Sep. 16, 2005; and -   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,362 filed Sep. 16, 2005.

Each of the above stated applications is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

Certain embodiments of the invention relate to processing of network data. More specifically, certain embodiments of the invention relate to a method and system for a system-on-a-chip (SoC) device with integrated support for Ethernet, TCP, iSCSI, RDMA, and network application acceleration.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The International Standards Organization (ISO) has established the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model. The OSI Reference Model provides a network design framework allowing equipment from different vendors to be able to communicate. More specifically, the OSI Reference Model organizes the communication process into seven separate and distinct, interrelated categories in a layered sequence. Layer 1 is the Physical Layer. It deals with the physical means of sending data. Layer 2 is the Data Link Layer. It is associated with procedures and protocols for operating the communications lines, including the detection and correction of message errors. Layer 3 is the Network Layer. It determines how data is transferred between computers. Layer 4 is the Transport Layer. It defines the rules for information exchange and manages end-to-end delivery of information within and between networks, including error recovery and flow control. Layer 5 is the Session Layer. It deals with dialog management and controlling the use of the basic communications facility provided by Layer 4. Layer 6 is the Presentation Layer. It is associated with data formatting, code conversion and compression and decompression. Layer 7 is the Applications Layer. It addresses functions associated with particular applications services, such as file transfer, remote file access and virtual terminals.

Various electronic devices, for example, computers, wireless communication equipment, and personal digital assistants, may access various networks in order to communicate with each other. For example, transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) may be used by these devices to facilitate communication over the Internet. TCP enables two applications to establish a connection and exchange streams of data. TCP guarantees delivery of data and also guarantees that packets will be delivered in order to the layers above TCP. Compared to protocols such as UDP, TCP may be utilized to deliver data packets to a final destination in the same order in which they were sent, and without any packets missing. The TCP also has the capability to distinguish data for different applications, such as, for example, a Web server and an email server, on the same computer.

Accordingly, the TCP protocol is frequently used with Internet communications. The traditional solution for implementing the OSI stack and TCP/IP processing may have been to use faster, more powerful processors. For example, research has shown that the common path for TCP input/output processing costs about 300 instructions. At the maximum rate, about 15 million (M) minimum size packets are received per second for a 10 Gbits/connection. As a result, about 4,500 million instructions per second (MIPS) are required for input path processing. When a similar number of MIPS is added for processing an outgoing connection, the total number of instructions per second, which may be close to the limit of a modern processor. For example, an advanced Pentium 4 processor may deliver about 10,000 MIPS of processing power. However, in a design where the processor may handle the entire protocol stack, the processor may become a bottleneck.

Existing designs for host bus adaptors or network interface cards (NIC) have relied heavily on running firmware on embedded processors. These designs share a common characteristic that they all rely on embedded processors and firmware to handle network stack processing at the NIC level. To scale with ever increasing network speed, a natural solution for conventional NICs is to utilize more processors, which increases processing speed and cost of implementation.

Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A system and/or method for a system-on-a-chip (SoC) device with integrated support for Ethernet, TCP, iSCSI, RDMA, and network application acceleration, substantially as shown in and/or described in connection with at least one of the figures, as set forth more completely in the claims.

Various advantages, aspects and novel features of the present invention, as well as details of an illustrated embodiment thereof, will be more fully understood from the following description and drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of an exemplary communication system, which may be utilized in connection with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating various processing paths for a multifunction host bus adapter, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary multifunction host bus adapter chip, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3A is a diagram illustrating RDMA segmentation, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3B is a diagram illustrating RDMA processing, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3C is a block diagram of an exemplary storage subsystem utilizing a multifunction host bus adapter, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3D is a flow diagram of exemplary steps for processing network data, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Certain embodiments of the invention may be found in a method and system for processing network data utilizing a system-on-a-chip (SoC) device with integrated support for Ethernet, TCP, iSCSI, RDMA, and network application acceleration. The SoC device may comprise a multifunction host bus adapter (MHBA) chip, which may be adapted to handle a plurality of protocols. The MHBA chip may store received data for at least one of a plurality of network connections, and the MHBA chip may be configured to process the received data based on one of the plurality of protocols that is associated with the received data. For example, the MHBA chip may be adapted to handle data associated with one of a plurality of protocols, such as an Ethernet protocol, a transmission control protocol (TCP), an Internet protocol (IP), an Internet small computer system interface (iSCSI) protocol, and a remote direct memory access (RDMA) protocol. In this regard, data processing associated with such protocols may be offloaded to the MHBA chip from a host processor, thereby increasing the efficiency of the host processor and significantly reducing costs of implementation.

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of an exemplary communication system, which may be utilized in connection with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIG. 1A, there is shown hosts 100 and 101, and a network 115. The host 101 may comprise a central processing unit (CPU) 102, a memory interface (MCH) 104, a memory block 106, an input/output (IO) interface (ICH) 108, and a multifunction host bus adapter (MHBA) chip 110.

The memory interface (MCH) 104 may comprise suitable circuitry and/or logic that may be adapted to transfer data between the memory block 106 and other devices, for example, the CPU 102. The input/output interface (ICH) 108 may comprise suitable circuitry and/or logic that may be adapted to transfer data between IO devices, between an IO device and the memory block 106, or between an IO device and the CPU 102. The MHBA 110 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic and/or code that may be adapted to transmit and receive data for any of a plurality of communication protocols. The MHBA chip 110 may utilize RDMA host bus adapter (HBA) functionalities, iSCSI HBA functionalities, Ethernet network interface card (NIC) functionalities, and/or TCP/IP offload functionalities. In this regard, the MHBA chip 110 may be adapted to process Ethernet protocol data, TCP data, IP data, iSCSI data and RDMA data. The amount of processing may be design and/or implementation dependent. In some instances, the MHBA chip 110 may comprise a single chip that may use on-chip memory and/or off-chip memory for processing data for any of the plurality of communication protocols.

In operation, the host 100 and the host 101 may communicate with each other via, for example, the network 115. The network 115 may be an Ethernet network. Accordingly, the host 100 and/or 101 may send and/or receive packets via a network interface card, for example, the MHBA chip 110. For example, the CPU 102 may fetch instructions from the memory block 106 and execute those instructions. The CPU 102 may additionally store within, and/or retrieve data from, the memory block 106. Execution of instructions may comprise transferring data with other components. For example, a software application running on the CPU 102 may have data to transmit to a network, for example, the network 115. An example of the software application may be email applications that are used to sent email sent between the hosts 100 and 101.

Accordingly, the CPU 102 in the host 101 may process data in an email and communicate the processed data to the MHBA chip 110. The data may be communicated to the MHBA chip 110 directly by the CPU 102. Alternatively, the data may be stored in the memory block 106. The stored data may be transferred to the MHBA chip 110 via, for example, a direct memory access (DMA) process. Various parameters needed for the DMA, for example, the source start address, the number of bytes to be transferred, and the destination start address, may be written by the CPU 102 to, for example, the memory interface (MCH) 104. Upon a start command, the memory interface (MCH) 104 may start the DMA process. In this regard, the memory interface (MCH) 104 may act as a DMA controller.

The NIC 110 may further process the email data and transmit the email data as packets in a format suitable for transfer over the network 115 to which it is connected. Similarly, the NIC 110 may receive packets from the network 115 to which it is connected. The NIC 110 may process data in the received packets and communicate the processed data to higher protocol processes that may further process the data. The processed data may be stored in the memory block 106, via the IO interface (ICH) 108 and the memory interface (MCH) 104. The data in the memory block 106 may be further processed by the email application running on the CPU 102 and finally displayed as a, for example, text email message for a user on the host 101.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating various processing paths for a multifunction host bus adapter, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIG. 1B, there is illustrated a hardware device integrated within a chip, such as a multifunction host bus adapter (MHBA) chip 106 b, which may be utilized to process data from one or more connections with the application or user level 102 b. The user level may communicate with the MHBA chip 106 b via the kernel or software level 104 b. The user level 102 b may utilize one or more RDMA applications 108 b and/or socket applications 110 b. The kernel level 104 b may utilize software, for example, which may be used to implement a system call interface 112 b, file system processing 114 b, small computer system interface processing (SCSI) 116 b, Internet SCSI processing (iSCSI) 120 b, RDMA verb library processing 124 b, TCP offload processing 126 b, TCP/IP processing 128 b, and network device drivers 130 b. The MHBA 106 b may comprise messaging and DMA interface (IF) 132 b, RDMA processing block 134 b, TCP offload processing block 136 b, Ethernet processing block 138 b, a TCP offload engine 140 b, and a transceiver (Tx/Rx) interface 142 b.

In one embodiment of the invention, the MHBA chip 106 b may be adapted to process data from a native TCP/IP or Ethernet stack, a TCP offload stack, and or an RDMA stack. The Ethernet stack processing, the TCP offload processing, and the RDMA processing may be represented with path 1, 2, and 3 in FIG. 1B, respectively.

The Ethernet processing path, path 1, may be utilized by existing socket applications 110 b for performing network input/output (I/O) operations. During Ethernet packet processing, a packet may be communicated from the socket application 110 b to the TCP/IP processing block 128 b within the kernel level 104 b via the system call interface 112 b and the switch 122 b. The TCP/IP processing block 128 b may then communicate the Ethernet packet to the Ethernet processing block 138 b within the MHBA chip 106 b. After the Ethernet packet is processed, the result may be communicated to the Rx/Tx interface (IF) 142 b. In one embodiment of the invention, the MHBA chip 106 b may utilize optimization technology to perform data optimization operations, for example, within the raw Ethernet path, path 1. Such data optimization operations may include calculation of IP header checksum, TCP checksum and/or user datagram protocol (UDP) checksum. Additional data optimization operations may comprise calculation of application specific digests, such as the 32-bits cyclic redundancy check (CRC-32) values for iSCSI. Other optimization operations may comprise adding a secure checksum to remote procedure call (RPC) calls and replies.

During an exemplary TCP offload processing scenario as illustrated by path 2, a TCP packet may be communicated from the socket application 110 b to the TCP offload processing block 126 b within the kernel level 104 b via the system call interface 112 b and the switch 122 b. The TCP offload processing block 126 b may then communicate the TCP packet to the TCP offload block 136 b, which may communicate the TCP packet to the TCP offload engine 140 b for processing. After the TCP packet is processed, the result may be communicated from the TCP offload engine 140 b to the Rx/Tx interface (IF) 142 b. The Rx/Tx IF 142 b may be adapted to communicate information to and from the MHBA chip 106 b. The TCP offload engine (TOE) 140 b within the MHBA chip 106 b may be adapted to handle network I/O processing with limited or no involvement from a host processor. Specifically, the TOE 140 b may be adapted to perform protocol-related encapsulation, segmentation, re-assembly, and/or acknowledgement tasks within the MHBA chip 106 b, thereby reducing overhead on the host processor.

During an exemplary RDMA stack processing scenario as illustrated by path 3, an RDMA packet may be communicated from the RDMA application block 108 b within the user level 102 b to the RDMA processing block 134 b within the MHBA chip 106 b via one or more blocks within the kernel level 104 b. For example, an RDMA packet may be communicated from the RDMA application block 108 b to the RDMA verb processing block 124 b via the system call interface 112 b. The RDMA verb processing block 124 b may communicate the RDMA packet to the RDMA processing block 134 b by utilizing the network device driver 130 b and the messaging interface 132 b. The RDMA processing block 134 b may utilize the TCP offload engine 140 b for further processing of the RDMA packet. After the RDMA packet is processed, the result may be communicated from the TCP offload engine 140 b to the Rx/Tx interface (IF) 142 b.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary multifunction host bus adapter chip, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIG. 2, the multifunction host bus adapter (MHBA) chip 202 may comprise a receive interface (RxIF) 214, a transmit interface (TxIF) 212, a TCP engine 204, processor interface (PIF) 208, Ethernet engine (ETH) 206, host interface (HIF) 210, and protocol processors 236, . . . , 242. The MHBA chip 202 may further comprise a session lookup block 216, MPT/MTT processing block 228, node controller 230, a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) controller 248, a memory controller 234, a buffer manager 250, and an interconnect bus 232.

The RxIF 214 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be adapted to receive data from any of a plurality of protocol types, to pre-process the received data and to communicate the pre-processed data to one or more blocks within the MHBA chip 202 for further processing. The RxIF 214 may comprise a receive buffer descriptor queue 214 a, a receiver media access control (MAC) block 214 b, a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) block 214 c, checksum calculation block 214 d, header extraction block 214 e, and filtering block 214 f. The RxIF 214 may receive packets via one or more input ports 264. The input ports 264 may each have a unique IP address and may be adapted to support Gigabit Ethernet, for example. The receive buffer descriptor queue 214 a may comprise a list of local buffers for keeping received packets. This list may be received from the buffer manager 250. The receiver MAC block 214 b may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be utilized to perform media access control (MAC) layer processing, such as checksum validation, of a received packet.

The receiver MAC block 214 b may utilize the checksum calculation block 214 d to calculate a checksum and compare the calculated checksum with that of a received packet. Corrupted packets with incorrect checksums may be discarded by the RxIF 214. Furthermore, the receiver MAC block 214 b may utilize the filtering block 214 f to filter out the frames intended for the host by verifying the destination address in the received frames. In this regard, the receiver MAC block 214 b may compare an IP address of a current packet with a destination IP address. If the IP addresses do not match, the packet may be dropped. The RxIF 214 may utilize the CRC block 214 c to calculate a CRC for a received packet. In addition, the RxIF 214 may utilize the header extraction block 214 e to extract one or more headers from a received packet. For example, the RxIF 214 may initially extract an IP header and then a TCP header.

The transmit interface (TxIF) 212 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be adapted to buffer processed data and perform MAC layer functions prior to transmitting the processed data outside the MHBA chip 202. Furthermore, the TxIF 212 may be adapted to calculate checksums and/or cyclic redundancy checks (CRCs) for outgoing packets, as well as to insert MPA markers within RDMA packets. Processed data may be transmitted by the TxIF 212 via one or more output ports 266, which may support Gigabit Ethernet, for example. The TxIF 212 may comprise a plurality of buffers 212 a, one or more request queues 212 c, and a transmit (Tx) MAC block 212 b. Request commands for transmitting processed data may be queued in the request queue 212 c. Processed data may be stored by the TxIF 212 within one or more buffers 212 a. In one embodiment of the invention, when data is stored into the buffers 212 a via, for example, a DMA transfer, the TxIF 212 may calculate checksum for a transmit packet.

The TCP engine 204 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be adapted to process TCP offload packets. The TCP engine may comprise a scheduler 218, a TCP receive engine (RxE) 222, a TCP transmit engine (TxE) 220, a timer 226, and an acknowledgement generator 224. The scheduler 218 may comprise a request queue 218 a and context cache 218 b. The context cache 218 b may store transmission control block (TCB) array information for the most recently accessed TCP sessions.

The scheduler 218 may be adapted to accept packet information, such as TCP header information from the RxIF 214 and to provide transmission control blocks (TCBs), or TCP context to the RxE 222 during processing of a received TCP packet, and to the TxE 220 during transmission of a TCP offload packet. The TCB information may be acquired from the context cache 218 b, based on a result of the TCP session lookup 216. The request queue 218 a may be utilized to queue one or more requests for TCB data from the context cache 218 b. The scheduler 218 may also be adapted to forward received TCP packets to the Ethernet engine (ETH) 206 if context for offload sessions cannot be found.

The session lookup block 216 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be utilized by the scheduler 218 during a TCP session lookup operation to obtain TCP context information from the context cache 218 b, based on TCP header information received from the RxIF 214.

The RxE 222 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be an RFC-compliant hardware engine that is adapted to process TCP packet header information for a received packet. The TCP packet header information may be received from the scheduler 218. Processed packet header information may be communicated to the PIF 208 and updated TCP context information may be communicated back to the scheduler 218 for storage into the context cache 218 b. The RxE 222 may also be adapted to generate a request for the timer 226 to set or reset a timer as well as a request for calculation of a round trip time (RTT) for processing TCP retransmissions and congestion avoidance. Furthermore, the RxE 222 may be adapted to generate a request for the acknowledgement generator 224 to generate one or more TCP acknowledgement packets.

The TxE 220 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be an RFC-compliant hardware engine that is adapted to process TCP context information for a transmit packet. The TxE 220 may receive the TCP context information from the scheduler 218 and may utilize the received TCP context information to generate a TCP header for the transmit packet. The generated TCP header information may be communicated to the TxIF 212, where the TCP header may be added to TCP payload data to generate a TCP transmit packet.

The processor interface (PIF) 208 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may utilize embedded processor cores, such as the protocol processors 236, . . . , 242, for handling dynamic operations such as TCP re-assembly and host messaging functionalities. The PIF 208 may comprise a message queue 208 a, a direct memory access (DMA) command queue 208 b, and receive/transmit queues (RxQ/TxQ) 208 c. The protocol processors 236, . . . , 242 may be used for TCP re-assembly and system management tasks.

The Ethernet engine (ETH) 206 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be adapted to handle processing of non-offloaded packets, such as Ethernet packets or TCP packets that may not require TCP session processing. The ETH 206 may comprise message queues 206 a, DMA command queues 206 b, RxQ/TxQ 206 c, and receive buffer descriptor list 206 d.

The host interface (HIF) 210 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may provide messaging support for communication between a host and the MHBA chip 202 via the connection 256. The MPT/MTT processing block 228 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be utilized for real host memory address lookup during processing of an RDMA connection. The MPT/MTT processing block 228 may comprise adaptive cache for caching MPT and MTT entries during a host memory address lookup operation. An exemplary adaptive cache design for MPT/MTT tables and TCP context is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,362 filed Sep. 16, 2005, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The buffer manager 250 may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be utilized to manage local buffers within the MHBA chip 202. The buffer manager 250 may provide buffers to, for example, the RxIF 214 for receiving unsolicited packets. The buffer manager 250 may also accept buffers released by logic blocks such as the ETH 206, after, for example, the ETH 206 has completed a DMA operation that moves received packets to host memory.

The MHBA chip 202 may also utilize a node controller 230 to communicate with outside MHBAs so that multiple MHBA chips may form a multiprocessor system. The RAID controller 248 may be used by the MHBA chip 202 for communication with an outside storage device. The memory controller 234 may be used to control communication between the external memory 246 and the MHBA chip 202. The external memory 246 may be utilized to store a main TCB array, for example. A portion of the TCB array may be communicated to the MHBA chip 202 and may be stored within the context cache 218 b.

In operation, a packet may be received by the RxIF 214 via an input port 264 and may be processed within the MHBA chip 202, based on a protocol type associated with the received data. The RxIF 214 may drop packets with incorrect destination addresses or corrupted packets with incorrect checksums. A buffer may be obtained from the descriptor list 214 a for storing the received packet and the buffer descriptor list 214 a may be updated. A new replenishment buffer may be obtained from the buffer manager 250. If the received packet is a non-TCP packet, such as an Ethernet packet, the packet may be delivered to the ETH 206 via the connection 271. Non-TCP packets may be delivered to the ETH 206 as Ethernet frames. The ETH 206 may also receive non-offloaded TCP packets from the scheduler 218 within the TCP engine 204. After the ETH 206 processes the non-TCP packet, the processed packet may be communicated to the HIF 210. The HIF 210 may communicate the received processed packet to the host via the connection 256.

If the received packet is a TCP offload packet, the received packet may be processed by the RxIF 214. The RxIF 214 may remove the TCP header which may be communicated to the scheduler 218 within the TCP engine 204 and to the session lookup block 216. The resulting TCP payload may be communicated to the external memory 246 via the interconnect bus 232, for processing by the protocol processors 236, . . . , 242. The scheduler 218 may utilize the session lookup block 216 to perform a TCP session lookup from recently accessed TCP sessions, based on the received TCP header. The selected TCP session 270 may be communicated to the scheduler 218. The scheduler 218 may select TCP context for the current TCP header, based on the TCP session information 270. The TCP context may be communicated to the RxE 222 via connection 273. The RxE 222 may process the current TCP header and extract control information, based on the selected TCP context or TCB received from the scheduler 218. The RxE 222 may then update the TCP context based on the processed header information and the updated TCP context may be communicated back to the scheduler 218 for storage into the context cache 218 b. The processed header information may be communicated from the RxE 222 to the PIF 208. The protocol processors 236, . . . , 242 may then perform TCP re-assembly. The re-assembled TCP packets, with payload, data read out of external memory 246, may be communicated to the HIF 210 and then to a host via the connection 256.

During processing of data for transmission, data may be received by the MHBA chip 202 from the host via the connection 256 and the HIF 210. The received transmit data may be stored within the external memory 246. If the transmit data is a non-TCP data, it may be communicated to the ETH 206. The ETH 206 may process the non-TCP packet and may communicate the processed packet to the TxIF 212 via connection 276. The TxIF 212 may then communicate the processed transmit non-TCP packet outside the MHBA chip 202 via the output ports 266.

If the transmit data comprises TCP payload data, the PIF 208 may communicate a TCP session indicator corresponding to the TCP payload information to the scheduler 218 via connection 274. The scheduler 218 may select a TCP context from the context cache 218 b, based on the TCP session information received from the PIF 208. The selected TCP context may be communicated from the scheduler 218 to the TxE 220 via connection 272. The TxE 220 may then generate a TCP header for the TCP transmit packet, based on the TCB or TCP context received from the scheduler 218. The generated TCP header may be communicated from the TxE 220 to the TxIF 212 via connection 275. The TCP payload may be communicated to the TxIF 212 from the PIF 208 via connection 254. The packet payload may also be communicated from the host to the TxIF 212, or from the host to local buffers within the external memory 246. In this regard, during packet re-transmission, data may be communicated to the TxIF 212 via a DMA transfer from a local buffer in the external memory 246 or via DMA transfer from the host memory. The TxIF 212 may utilize the TCP payload received from the PIF 208 and the TCP header received from the TxE 220 to generate a TCP packet. The generated TCP packet may then be communicated outside the MHBA chip 202 via one or more output ports 266.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the MHBA chip 202 may be adapted to process RDMA data received by the RxIF 214, or RDMA data for transmission by the TxIF 212. Processing of RDMA data by an exemplary host bus adapter such as the MHBA chip 202 is further described below, with reference to FIGS. 3A and 3B. RDMA is a technology for achieving zero-copy in modern network subsystem. It is a suite that may comprise three protocols—RDMA protocol (RDMAP), direct data placement (DDP), and marker PDU aligned framing protocol (MPA), where a PDU is a protocol data unit. RDMAP may provide interfaces to applications for sending and receiving data. DDP may be utilized to slice outgoing data into segments that fit into TCP's maximum segment size (MSS) field, and to place incoming data into destination buffers. MPA may be utilized to provide a framing scheme which may facilitate DDP operations in identifying DDP segments during RDMA processing. RDMA may be a transport protocol suite on top of TCP.

FIG. 3A is a diagram illustrating RDMA segmentation, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIGS. 2 and 3A, the MHBA chip 202 may be adapted to process an RDMA message received by the RxIF 214. For example, the RxIF 214 may receive a TCP segment 302 a. The TCP segment may comprise a TCP header 304 a and payload 306 a. The TCP header 304 a may be separated by the RxIF 214, and the resulting header 306 a may be communicated and buffered within the PIF 208 for processing by the protocol processors 236, . . . , 242. Since an RDMA message may be sufficiently large to fit into one TCP segment, DDP processing by the processors 236, . . . , 242 may be utilized for slicing a large RDMA message into smaller segments. For example, the RDMA protocol data unit 308 a, which may be part of the payload 306 a, may comprise a combined header 310 a and 312 a, and a DDP/RDMA payload 314 a. The combined header may comprise control information such as an MPA head, which comprises length indicator 310 a and a DDP/RDMA header 312 a. The DDP/RDMA header information 312 a may specify parameters such as operation type, the address for the destination buffers and the length of data transfer.

A marker may be added to an RDMA payload by the MPA framing protocol at a stride of every 512 bytes in the TCP sequence space. Markers may assist a receiver, such as the MHBA chip 202, to locate the DDP/RDMA header 312 a. If the MHBA chip 202 receives network packets out-of-order, the MHBA chip 202 may utilize the marker 316 a at fixed, known locations to quickly locate DDP headers, such as the DDP/RDMA header 312 a. After recovering the DDP header 312 a, the MHBA chip 202 may place data into a destination buffer within the host memory via the HIF 210. Because each DDP segment is self-contained and the RDMA header 312 a may include destination buffer address, quick data placement in the presence of out-of-order packets may be achieved.

The HIF 210 may be adapted to remove the marker 316 a and the CRC 318 a to obtain the DDP segment 319 a. The DDP segment 319 a may comprise a DDP/RDMA header 320 a and a DDP/RDMA payload 322 a. The HIF 210 may further process the DDP segment 319 a to obtain the RDMA message 324 a. The RDMA message 324 a may comprise an RDMA header 326 a and payload 328. The payload 328, which may be the application data 330 a, may comprise upper layer protocol (UPL) information and protocol data unit (PDU) information.

FIG. 3B is a diagram illustrating RDMA processing, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIGS. 2 and 3A, a host bus adapter 302 b, which may be the same as the MHBA chip 202 in FIG. 2, may utilize RDMA protocol processing block 312 b, DDP processing 310 b, MPA processing 308 b, and TCP processing by a TCP engine 306 b. RDMA, MPA and DDP processing may be performed by the processors 236, . . . , 242. A host application 324 b within the host 304 b may communicate with the MHBA 202 via a verb layer 322 b and driver layer 320 b. The host application 324 b may communicate data via a RDMA/TCP connection, for example. In such instances, the host application 324 b may issue a transmit request to the send queue (SQ) 314 b. The transmit request command may comprise an indication of the amount of data that is to be sent to the MHBA chip 202. When an RDMA packet is ready for transmission, MPA markers and CRC information may be calculated and inserted within the RDMA payload by the TxIF 212.

FIG. 3C is a block diagram of an exemplary storage subsystem utilizing a multifunction host bus adapter, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIG. 3C, the exemplary storage subsystem 305 c may comprise memory 316 c, a processor 318 c, a multifunction host bus adapter (MHBA) chip 306 c, and a plurality of storage drives 320 c, . . . , 324 c. The MHBA chip 306 c may be the same as MHBA chip 202 of FIG. 2. The MHBA chip 306 c may comprise a node controller and packet manager (NC/PM) 310 c, an iSCSI and RDMA (iSCSI/RDMA) block 312 c, a TCP/IP processing block 308 c and a serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) interface 314 c. The storage subsystem 305 c may be communicatively coupled to a bus/switch 307 c and to a server switch 302 c.

The NC/PM 310 c may comprise suitable circuitry, logic, and/or code and may be adapted to control one or more nodes that may be utilizing the storage subsystem 305 c. For example, a node may be connected to the storage subsystem 305 c via the bus/switch 307 c. The iSCSI/RDMA block 312 c and the TCP/IP block 308 c may be utilized by the storage subsystem 305 c to communicate with a remote dedicated server, for example, using iSCSI protocol over a TCP/IP network. For example, network traffic 326 c from a remote server may be communicated to the storage subsystem 305 c via the switch 302 c and over a TCP/IP connection utilizing the iSCSI/RDMA block 312 c. In addition, the iSCSI/RDMA block 312 c may be utilized by the storage subsystem 305 c during an RDMA connection between the memory 316 c and a memory in a remote device, such as a network device coupled to the bus/switch 307 c. The SATA interface 314 c may be utilized by the MHBA chip 306 c to establish fast connections and data exchange between the MHBA chip 306 c and the storage drives 320 c, . . . , 324 c within the storage subsystem 305 c.

In operation, a network device coupled to the bus/switch 307 c may request storage of server data 326 c in a storage subsystem. Server data 326 c may be communicated and routed to a storage subsystem by the switch 302 c. For example, the server data 326 c may be routed for storage by a storage subsystem within the storage brick 304 c, or it may be routed for storage by the storage subsystem 305 c. The MHBA chip 306 c may utilize the SATA interface 314 c to store the acquired server data in any one of the storage drives 320 c, . . . , 324 c.

FIG. 3D is a flow diagram of exemplary steps for processing network data, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIGS. 2 and 3D, at 302 d, at least a portion of received data for at least one of a plurality of network connections may be stored on a multifunction host bus adapter (MHBA) chip 202 that handles a plurality of protocols. At 303 d, the received data may be validated within the MHBA chip 202. For example, the received data may be validated by the RxIF 214. At 304 d, the MHBA chip 202 may be configured for handling the received data based on one of the plurality of protocols that is associated with the received data. At 306 d, it may be determined whether the received data utilizes a transmission control protocol (TCP). If the received data utilizes a transmission control protocol, at 308 d, a TCP session indication may be determined within the MHBA chip 202.

The TCP session indication may be determined by the session lookup block 216, for example, and the TCP session identification may be based on a corresponding TCP header within the received data. At 310 d, TCP context information for the received data may be acquired within the MHBA chip 202, based on the located TCP session identification. At 312 d, at least one TCP packet within the received data may be processed within the MHBA chip 202, based on the acquired TCP context information. At 314 d, it may be determined whether the received data is based on a RDMA protocol. If the received data is based on a RDMA protocol, at 316 d, at least one RDMA marker may be removed from the received data within the MHBA chip.

Accordingly, aspects of the invention may be realized in hardware, software, firmware or a combination thereof. The invention may be realized in a centralized fashion in at least one computer system or in a distributed fashion where different elements are spread across several interconnected computer systems. Any kind of computer system or other apparatus adapted for carrying out the methods described herein is suited. A typical combination of hardware, software and firmware may be a general-purpose computer system with a computer program that, when being loaded and executed, controls the computer system such that it carries out the methods described herein.

One embodiment of the present invention may be implemented as a board level product, as a single chip, application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or with varying levels integrated on a single chip with other portions of the system as separate components. The degree of integration of the system will primarily be determined by speed and cost considerations. Because of the sophisticated nature of modern processors, it is possible to utilize a commercially available processor, which may be implemented external to an ASIC implementation of the present system. Alternatively, if the processor is available as an ASIC core or logic block, then the commercially available processor may be implemented as part of an ASIC device with various functions implemented as firmware.

The present invention may also be embedded in a computer program product, which comprises all the features enabling the implementation of the methods described herein, and which when loaded in a computer system is able to carry out these methods. Computer program in the present context may mean, for example, any expression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended to cause a system having an information processing capability to perform a particular function either directly or after either or both of the following: a) conversion to another language, code or notation; b) reproduction in a different material form. However, other meanings of computer program within the understanding of those skilled in the art are also contemplated by the present invention.

While the invention has been described with reference to certain embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted without departing from the scope of the present invention. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the present invention without departing from its scope. Therefore, it is intended that the present invention not be limited to the particular embodiments disclosed, but that the present invention will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims. 

1. A method for processing network data, the method comprising: storing on a chip that handles a plurality of protocols, at least a portion of received data for at least one of a plurality of network connections; configuring said chip for handling said received data based on one of said plurality of protocols that is associated with said received data; processing within said chip, said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections by said configured chip; and if said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections utilizes a transmission control protocol (TCP), determining within said chip, a TCP session identification based on a corresponding TCP header within said received data.
 2. The method according to claim 1, comprising acquiring within said chip, TCP context information for said received data based on said located TCP session identification.
 3. The method according to claim 2, comprising processing within said chip, at least one TCP packet within said received data, based on said acquired TCP context information.
 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein said chip comprises a multifunction host bus adapter chip.
 5. A method for processing network data, the method comprising: storing on a chip that handles a plurality of protocols, at least a portion of received data for at least one of a plurality of network connections; configuring said chip for handling said received data based on one of said plurality of protocols that is associated with said received data; processing within said chip, said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections by said configured chip; and if said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections is based on a RDMA protocol, removing within said chip, at least one RDMA marker from said received data.
 6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said chip comprises a multifunction host bus adapter chip.
 7. A system for processing network data, the system comprising: a chip that stores at least a portion of received data for at least one of a plurality of network connections, wherein said chip handles a plurality of protocols, and wherein said chip is configured for handling said received data based on one of said plurality of protocols that is associated with said received data; and said chip processes said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections, wherein said chip determines a TCP session identification based on a corresponding TCP header within said received data, if said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections utilizes a transmission control protocol (TCP).
 8. The system according to claim 7, wherein said chip acquires TCP context information for said received data based on said located TCP session identification.
 9. The system according to claim 8, wherein said chip processes at least one TCP packet within said received data, based on said acquired TCP context information.
 10. A system for processing network data, the system comprising: a chip that stores at least a portion of received data for at least one of a plurality of network connections, wherein said chip handles a plurality of protocols, and wherein said chip is configured for handling said received data based on one of said plurality of protocols that is associated with said received data; and said chip processes said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections, wherein said chip removes at least one RDMA marker from said received data, if said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections is based on a RDMA protocol.
 11. A system for processing network data, the system comprising: a chip that stores at least a portion of received data for at least one of a plurality of network connections, wherein said chip handles a plurality of protocols, and wherein said chip is configured for handling said received data based on one of said plurality of protocols that is associated with said received data; and said chip processes said received data for said at least one of said plurality of network connections, wherein said chip inserts at least one RDMA marker into data processed within said chip, if said data processed within said chip is based on a RDMA protocol. 